Tuesday, December 29, 2015

here is a Confession to the Truth behind Ilina and Tim, Anthony Lane gave me the courage to share this truth

Ilina is a Persona, a Role, played by an ameteur kabuki actor of sorts

i always wanted a little sister when i was younger, so in my head, i fabricated the ideal little sister in my head and well, created several candidates for little sisters i would also be willing to accept. hence me roleplaying the Aniri family as early as 1996 when i was around 7 years old and even conceiving them when i was 5 or 6.

the Aniri family were the first imaginary friends to have a positive effect on my life and sanity in a world where others would get me in trouble.

i was raised mostly around women with no real male influence, my mother, grandmother and cousin. because of this, i always joined them on girl's nights out and felt like one of the girls. which made me very uncomfortable with my body and my Y chromosone

i turned to roleplaying, because i could channel my inner self through the persona of my fabricated imaginary little sister figures.

my Drama Teacher used to defend me for it, saying it was normal in historical theatre for males to play female roles.

and well, i am horribly ashamed of my body, so i use the childhood photography trauma as an excuse to cover up the truth of being ashamed of my body. even though i think Anthony Lane, Ladybeard, and Various other male crossdressers as well as many other Transexual friends i have on Various sites are Adorable.

i hope this doesn't change your opinion of me and you still see me as the sweet and supportive legal loli who will provide emotional support in times of need. my biggest reason for pretending to be married, was to avoid questioning, and to avoid relationships while i hid myself behind a persona to provide myself the courage to channel my inner effeminate self.

i know how it is common for Trans individuals to fear judgement, and at the same time, the reason i pretend to be mute, is because it is part of the persona, to retain the role.

i cannot bring myself to speak in person, and still seek permission to use the Ilina Selene Hawkins-Young persona for courage. because i promise to be the finest little sister i can, because at my core, i am one big imoutocon, faeriecon and lolicon.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

i mean yeah, i intend to simplify gear based on Category instead of based individual type. so as to encourage diversity in the same way savage worlds encourages. first, i am going to start off with Armor in this blog.

too often, people fuss over which armor is the best to have and well, light armor is often neglected in favor of heavy, and i want to bring the descriptive power back to the players. i will be coming up with armor types based on category, note that armor types in the book starting packages are instead replaced by armor of their type.

Light Armor; Light Armor is generally of negligible weight, extremely quiet and concealable, also extremely cheap, doesn't require proficiency to wear, and provides an armor class of 13+the targets dexterity modifier. generally, a suit of light armor is of negligible cost and there are many that could be mistaken for clothing. the cost is generally determined by how elaborate and fancy the armor is. everybody is proficient in light armor

Medium Armor; Medium Armor requires medium armor proficency to wear, and generally weighs about 15 lbs when worn due to even distribution and a decent fitting intended to make it less tiresome to wear, an improperly fitted suit instead weighs 30 pounds to wear. improperly fitted suits include any suit you didn't first procure by commission, such as spoils of an adventure. armor is refitted by a DM and player approved cost. Rogues, Rangers, Paladins, Fighters, Clerics, Druids, Bards, and similarly martially inclined classes are proficient in medium armor. medium Armor provides a base armor class of 15+the wearer's dexterity bonus to a maximum dexterity bonus of +2 but also inflicts disadvantage on stealth checks due to the bulkier texture of the armor and louder clanging.

Heavy Armor requires heavy armor proficiency to wear and generally weighs 25 lbs when worn due to distributions and a decent fitting to make it less tiresome to wear. an improperly fitted suit instead weighs 50 pounds to wear. improperly fitted suits include any suit you didn't first procure by commission, such as spoils of an adventure. armor is refitted by an appropriate DM and player approved cost. Fighters, Barbarians, Paladins and Rangers are proficient in heavy armor, and so are clerics with the appropriate domains. heavy armor has an armor class of 18 and doesn't include the wearer's dexterity modifiers. Heavy armor provides disadvantage on stealth and acrobatics rolls when worn.

Weapons;

i won't even track which weapons require which proficiencies. i will instead do them by weapon class. if you want to label a specific price for a specific weapon or armor, ask your dungeon master. the circumstances will change with the region, the economy and a vaiety of factors.

Light Weapons can be wielded by any character in one hand, using the better or strength or dexterity to determine the attack and damage bonus. a light weapon may choose to deal 1d6 points of damage or deal 1d4 points of damage with the reach property. a light ranged weapon has range increments of 30 feet for close range and 120 feet for long range. a light ranged weapon can deal 1d4 damage at up to double these ranges instead. everyone is proficient with a light weapon. a pistol, kusari-gama scimitar and club are examples of a light weapon

Medium Weapons can be wielded by any medium character with one hand or any small character with 2 hands. they use strength for attack and damage rolls if melee or dexterity for attack and damage rolls if ranged. a medium weapon deals 1d8 points of damage or can instead be made to deal 1d6 damage with reach, medium ranged weapons can be fired with 2 hands out to 60 feet for close range and 240 feet for long range. the thrown property can be added by halving these ranges. allowing strength as an alternate attribute for attack and damage rolls and decreasing handedness requirements to 1 hand. Bards of the College of Valor, Clerics with martially inclined domains as well as paladins, rangers, fighters, barbarians and monks are proficient with medium weapons. a longsword, warhammer, shortbow or javelin are examples if a medium weapon

Heavy Weapons can be wielded by any medium character with two hands or any large character with one hand. heavy weapons are wielded by fighters, barbarians, rangers and paladins. heavy weapons deal 2d6 damage, or can instead deal 1d10 damage with reach. heavy ranged weapons consist of stuff like rifles and longbows, which have a short range of 120 feet and a long range of 480 feet.

Sunday, December 13, 2015

i have played D&D since i pretty much started elementary school, and few systems could hold the same feel of Nostalgia. and well, D&D 1e and 2e had lots of commonly removaeble charts, 3.5 had lots of customizeability, and 4.0 had lots of hidden innovations. but my favorite Edition of D&D has got to be fifth, also called D&D Next/

Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition, your prestige classes are baked into the base class in a manner similar to Pathfinder's Archetypes. except that narrow field of Specialization is actually baked into your class, meaning you needn't be forced to trade the core of your class to be something new, and well, it makes designing subclasses easier. this perfectly marries the old 1st edition mechanic

second best part. when you multiclass as a spellcaster with either of 2 progressions, you only use 1 track of spell slots, based on your total character level and useable by all your spellcasting classes. meaning casters actually have less trouble multiclassing. meaning yeah, if you want a rogue 12 wizard 8, you will still have 9th level slots, but you will have a caster level of 12 for important things.

with the prime requisite system in the multiclassing section, which classes you can take are actually restricted by which scores you have a 13 or better in. this works well with the heroic NPC Array and well, actually helps weed out excessively crippled builds that make little in game sense, like fighters who did not gain strength or dexterity from a life of combat.

and the background system is amazing, and even allows for substitutions pulled from other backgrounds. meaning if your race or class already offer a skill or tool, you can trade that background skill or background tool for one you don't have. this also applies to racial skills, tools and weapons. for proficiencies at least. or hell, if there isn't an exact mixed background covered, you can literally mix and match to make one of your choosing. while this may seem like a cheap way to get perception or athletics on any class, with access to the proper desired tools and kits, the amount of customization is so amazing.

and well, characters feel much more competent at the low levels than they did in 3.5, without being as absurd as they were at the later levels. i mean, lower overall HP totals, but heightened access to out of combat healing, spammable cantrips, finesse weapons,and hell a decent amount of predetermined skills make 5e pretty amazing. plus, while you get fewer feats, each feat is a huge jump in specialization and there are even houserules for spending downtime to learn the use of skills and tools. and proficiency bonus is easy to calculate. and well, combat goes much smoother because there are fewer redundant spells and less overall numbers to crunch.

what can i actually say i dislike about my new favorite edition of D&D?

the lack of official published material is a problem for me. there aren't any pre made psionics rules and while homebrewing subclasses or subraces is easy enough, homebrewing a full base class or basic race is a different story

that wielding a weapon in both hands doesn't actually increase the amount of extra damage you deal from your strength, and well, in most cases, it is better to carry a shield than an offhand weapon or 2handed weapon.

that there is no bonus for a high intelligence for martial characters beyond saving throws.

other things,

i may sound like a 5th edition fangirl, but it is a freaking amazing system. nice, simple, customizeable and built with the best parts of its 4 ancestor systems. it has earned the name of "everybody's second favorite edition" due to having something good from everything.

i can't beleive i almost deluded myself into beleiving i wanted to play another sweet little girl in a post apocalyptic setting. i have enough innocent and vulnerable characters. i asked for advice on multiple sites, as if i talked myself into thinking i wanted to be the doctor or pharmacist again. but i played a Doctor for the second half of a year long campaign for 2 camapigns in a row.

i am sorry for telling others that i was going to play another doctor. i guess pharmacist and doctor are the wrong words, i should have simply said i wanted to play a pre apocalypse character that knows basic first aid, but also isn't completely helpless in combat or scavenging.

not quite a rogue, not quite a warrior, but somewhere between. someone who can do some skullduggery, can do some fighting, and can patch minor wounds between fights.

Saturday, December 12, 2015

funny thing, if you play a character who has the ability to learn healing as an option, people will expect you to fill the burden of healing their pathetic selves. and while i agree that actually having a brain and being involved with the fight can reduce damage taken by a drastic amount, as can actually using social skills like bluff or disguise, because yeah, being a convincing actor IC can save a groups life. nobody really remembers the time the cleric raised the fighter so he could inflict the finishing blow. and combat crits happen so often with some characters they lose importance. but everybody will remember when you critted that bluff or disguise check to impersonate one of the evil overlord's sergeants or the time the bard critically redeemed the femme fatale assassin after seducing her for information and promising her a new life.

in fact, let me give you a story on how i pulled a fast one on a group based on a loophole in their wording. i was around 8th or 9th grade, we were playing a 2e retroclone that had feats similar to 3.0s feat system and different spheres actually had different granted powers.

we were 14, we played RPGs during drama class. i was Told, "Ilina, we need you to play a cleric." and well, i heard the word "Cleric" and well, i had a cleric i had been sitting on using for 2 months, a cleric who worshipped an archfae matron called the "Maelstrom Maiden". to explain clerics of this particular goddess, she was a Sylph Pirate Queen with a heavy focus on her hatred of Slavery and was a darker and more violent inclination of Chaotic Good, where she violently freed slaves and punished slavers with terrorist tactics from history that where a thousand times worse than the way they treated their slaves. in fact, the cleric was shanghaied into a pirate crew against her will and rescued by the maelstrom maiden's storm of steel

it was 2003, 3.5 wasn't out yet that i knew of, and there were still pockets of people modifying 2e. because 3.0 didn't have enough bloat to be considered playable and people always went for the exotic builds. i played a Sylph, basically a Storm Nymph, who happened to be a Cleric Dedicated to the Maelstrom Maiden, and well, she had a few Dervish Style Nonweapon proficiencies that made her a badass nimble blade dancing twin scimitar wielding badass. yes, i had major access to storm spells, war spells, and minor access to divination spells, water spells and air spells. no access to the healing sphere at all. and as you can put it, all the granted training my goddess provided, was focused on kicking ass with a pair of swords. i lost most armor and shield proficiencies but gained a scaling parry bonus that compensated the loss or armor. because it was a new retro clone with real armor classes and base attack bonuses. rather than that lousy Thaco system.

i dominated combat in the name of the maelstrom maiden, freed many captives, never took prisoners, and well, punished slave traders and slave masters. and well, i released various sealed extraplanar beings, both angelic and demonic. because nothing should be in a cage and even destroyed pens to free livestock.

i had a large amount more experience than the party, because of the unique rewards in XP that were offered for following my Matron's Tenets. and well, the group kept bitching that i wouldn't heal them and that i was a cleric, and well, i had to let them know "you said you wanted a cleric and you got one. if you wanted a walking first aid kit, you should have specified that you wanted a walking first aid kit."

"but Ilina, you aren't even a cleric, you are a wannabe bladesinger with 2 blades." and i responded to them, "a cleric follows the tenets of their teachings, they aren't there to provide you with free healing because you just recklessly solve everything with brute force. learn to stop dumping charisma and start spending some proficiencies on acting or even diplomacy"

but sometimes, you can't stop reckless idiots that want to simply kill things, especially when you outshine them at the very thing they wanted to do, just to prove that clerics are still very effective on the front lines if you worshipped the correct god. and well, followers of the maelstrom maiden didn't have the stupid restriction on edged weapons, and even got a bunch of proficiencies referring to blade dancing, dual wielding, and piracy for free. they didn't get to wear most forms of armor though. they had a similar AC mechanism to Monks.

when that group asked for a cleric, they should have specified they wanted a walking first aid kit and not a real cleric. because when i play a cleric, i generally default to some kind of front line cleric because clerics actually have a lot of front line capability, quite a lot more than monks and rogues have.

but yeppies, i want to hear all your opinions on my pulling a fast one on this group and playing a character i had ready for 2 months i didn't get a chance to touch until that moment. again, yet another group of grognards that banned me from playing clerics, because i play pro active front line combatants that make the reactive healers feel insignifficant.

Friday, December 11, 2015

you know this moment all too well. you are fairly deep into your campaign. your players have amassed a small armory of highly dangerous weapons apiece, are completely oblivious to the weight of their almighty silly endgame armor, have so much money that mundane expenses are irrelevant, and well, have no problems breaking the economy by selling the massive dragon's hoard that is their next haul. but you ask "how can i prevent this?"

i can't tell you a lie and say you can prevent it, but i can give you a handful of solutions to delay this inevitable outcome.

1. enforce Encumbrance in both the form of weight and the the dimensions of the items. many players hate being penalized for carrying their massive hauls, but sometimes, to reign common sense, you have to actually restrict the amount of bulk a character carries.

2. limit access to or even ban access to extradimensional storage devices. too often, we see "magic mart", and well even then, this bazaar of arcane goodies tends to have exactly what the players need, and what is the first thing purchased around the end of the prologue. more bag space, in other words, you get such a wonderfully overpowered thing in D20, and well, all its incarnations. a 5 lb bag that is literally used to carry every mundane tool you don't want to bear the burden of carrying. for 2,000 gold pieces, i can pay magic mart to deal with this burden of making an item to carry my loot for me. this actually kills the fun of prioritizing loot in a variety of roguelikes. because now, you can by the rules, carry everything you pick up without burden. better to ban magical bags and force players to buy a cart, purchase some donkeys, and rent a teamster and hire a team of guards.

3. use common sense. if your player characters slew 100 goblins and took no precautions to not damage their armor beyond salvage. please let them know that the leather armor is destroyed beyond repair, is goblin sized, and well, is probably really filthy. no Sane NPC is going to buy 100 suits of filthy, disease ridden leather armor they can't really use or repair, let alone try to pay you a reasonable amount for scraps that would have to be cleaned and refurbished and are well, a long way from achieving use. and really? who wants a goblin shortsword? everybody can already get a knife pretty easily. please don't think you can flood the economy with cheap knives and not expect it to have consequences. a smart leather worker or blacksmith has an immediate life to worry about too, sure, they could turn that goblin equipment into something workable for the other people in a matter of months, but their families don't have a matter of months to really wait.

4. please, don't use "magic mart", and apply common sense when restricting access to military grade equipment. whether you buy plate armor in a fantasy setting, which is restricted to nobility, assault rifles, which are limited to your nations military, or power armor, which is limited to the Federation's highest elite and established marine officers. you should realize, how much you want to restrict said equipment in the appropriate setting. it would be silly if everybody ran around with an M-16 or ran around in the highest grade federation armor, such things need restricted access. because they realistically aren't things that are available everywhere let alone accessible without permission of the appropriate factions or organizations in those settings.

5. enforce living costs, permit renewals and other realistic money sinks if you wish to delay your players from becoming the small armories they desire to become. a common example i suggest with power armor, is 6 laser weapon batteries, which i call fusion cells, 25 dollars and 1 pound each, can be used to power a suit of power armor for 12 hours of active duty. which is done to not only restrict ammo by providing another use for it, but also limit the availability of power armor in another way. effectively, people have to pay to renew their power armor and repair their gear. often for materials or whatever. i would say 25% of the group's haul is deducted to cover maintenance and lifestyle costs. maybe more if they have a bigger set of expenses to deal with.

Thursday, December 10, 2015

awkward thing i dealt with in my history of playing Grognards. not only is Arcane and Divine a Pointless divide for magic that really does nothing but keep wizards in robes. a design made to preserve an outdated aesthetic. and to prevent wizards from learning healing spells, despite the fact the necromancer has access to them as does any wizard who doesn't neglect necromancy.

i mean, the line has been blurred on casters for like 2 decades. we have arcane classes that can cast healing spells and wear armor, but they apparently have to pay a tax for it. but really, a divine caster has an easier time accessing the arcane spell effects they desire.

"but clerics aren't supposed to cast fireball? that is the sorcerers job." lets look at this, the cleric who follows the correct pointless behavioral restrictions, can pick up a domain that gives them blatant access to fireball. and clerics don't pay for their domains, they get them for being a cleric. why couldn't a wizard who focused on necromancy or even transmutation use their gifts to heal others? if it is balanced for one one spell list, it should be fine for another at the exact same level range

but that is just a side point.

clerics have access to a lot of potent offensive natured spells from domains, and well, they have access to a lot of personal range combat enhancement spells they can only cast on themselves, and well, their best buffs are the ones they can only cast on themelves.

lets see what else the cleric gets that isn't healing related, they get easy access to heavy armor proficiency, if they don't already have it, they get shield proficiency, rogue level attack bonus progression, a decent hit die, decent saving throws in most editions, especially a ridiculous will, and depending on the set of behavioral restrictions they choose to follow, access to a large variety of extremely potent martial and even exotic weapons. with access to many personal range buffs that greatly enhance their ability to fight on the front lines, access to all these other frontline boons, and hell, a decent amount of domains that could offer anything from a potent offensive spell to an extra feat or few. why are we assuming a Cleric's job is to stand back and heal? i think with what the toolkit provides them, that they are clearly intended to take a proactive role in combat rather than a reactive one as a walking sentient box of bandaids.

and hell, even if you wanted a ranged cleric, cleric domains offer access to potent offensive spells like fireball, lightning bolt, or hell, in one edition, reserve feats or whatever, can grant them a mini eldritch blast. i doubt clerics were intended to sit in the back and heal, they are very much proactive and offensive.

here is a common spell that gets thrown around; Bless, what does it do? freaking bonus to attack rolls. what do you do with an extra 5% chance to hit, you smash things. in fact, a Cleric has a better chance of mitigating future damage by being offensive than they do by trying to heal others. there is not a single healing spell that will heal a downed ally for a high enough amount of HP for them to still fight after being smacked by the free attack a level appropriate enemy makes against them when they stand themselves up to ignore the prone penalties.

another thing.

we have so many caster classes that can access healing spells and armor. why do we have to keep the vision of wizards in robes? i know it has mythological precedent, but honestly, if a wizard invests the time learning to wear plate, we shouldn't tack on additional penalties because the wizard chose to wear plate, proficiency is plenty a requirement. hell, there was an anime with a wizard whose body was a suit of plate. yeah, his soul was bound to a suit of heavy armor.

Monday, December 7, 2015

i realized i'm an accidental hybrid of the monty haul and killer GM types

i reflected on some of my old one shots i run when i was younger and well, even though the rewards were heavy and tailored to the players desires, the fact my monsters used the equipment and consumables from their treasure allotments to make it difficult
lots of potent rewards came in player hands, but also a massive body count

i remember a level 5 paladin who asked me if they could have a holy avenger. here is the story of a massive party of adventurers working to get an item

the party originally consisted of a

half elf paladin 5

half elf bard 7

half-nymph shaman 9

human psion 4

drow ranger 6

elf rogue 5

after the investation, suriviving the fight and recruitng new members,

half nymph shaman 10 (the closest thing to an original party member from the third adventure)

half elf paladin 8

drow ranger 8

dwarf ranger 8

human psychic warrior 8

elf shaman 8

aasimaar sorcerer 8 with half elf favored soul 6 cohort

after saving the abbot. the level 10 shaman gained a pet water elemental companion by spending a talent

so because of the paladins want for a holy avenger scimitar. i included rumors of an Abbey in a mountain town that was beleived to possess a holy scimitar emblazoned with golden runes
abbeys usually have a massive amount of monks, and well, i went with the historical western monk types rather than the eastern kung fu monk
i included clerics, that were monks that drew power from their faith, retired fighters as temple guards in the fashion that many monks were retired footsoldiers, brigands who sought asylum and repayed the sanctuary with domestic assistance, essentially rogues, and well, scribes on loan to the abbot's educational library to restore and repair scriptures, in other words, wizards
the twist was the abbot was replaced by an incubus, but none of the "monks" were actually aware of this, and were well, in denial
a failed diplomacy roll from the paladin after the bard gathered evidence for a +4 circumstance bonus, (natural 1) led to a fight that left the bard, fighter, rogue, ranger and psion dead, and well, left the shaman and paladin being forced to retreat and well, being wanted by the outskirts village for "assaulting the abbot"
in their place. 2 rangers, a sorcerer with a favored soul cohort, a second shaman and a psychic warrior
2nd attempt, the new players agree the escort the surviving raiders to the outskirts in exile, and the paladin must have her holy avenger, and knows the "abbot" has an evil aura
the party seemed mostly prepared for the abbot, the increased healing and magic access allows them to curbstomp the mostly martial monks, that they didn't want to bother convincing them and well, the abbot was slain, but he still retained the abbots form in death and well, because the group murdered a monastery in 5 hours
the villagers were offended they could kill someone so friendly for access to a mere artifact.
and when the real abbot was bailed out of a soul gem, he banished the group for slaughtering his flock, in fact, he teleported them 1,000 miles away with a stone, and he was like "screw it, take my sword, you already slew 100 followers, maybe when you start a monastery, a reckless paladin brings mercenaries to accost your flock for it"

the fact he was thankful for being rescued, was the reason he let them take the blade, and sent them away, instead of reporting them

trappings and reskins are fun, i use them in every character i play, sometimes with minor mechanical changes to better fit the character. i won't go into detail but i will point out a few guidelines in a good trapping or reskin

1. make sure that the tradeoff is roughly equal, swapping a bonus to 1 skill for an equal bonus to another skill, swapping a racial minor hindrance for another minor hindrance to better fit the character's home culture. these are fine, just don't go trying to reduce an assumed major hindrance to merely a minor. and well, tacking penalties in exchange for bonuses doesn't always work well

2. make sure the package of mechanics makes sense for the reskin based on your trappings, sure, you could probably reskin a dwarf as a Groot style tree person. and well, they would have a lot of abilities in common. despite a few minor differences elsewhere, like where they spend the points they got from their hindrances.

3, make minor descriptive changes, and make sure the new creation fits the setting. while you could use the elf statistics for your elven android without needing much of a new race, some changes might change the ability of some other players to suspend their disbeleif, like the infamous chainmail bikini being as tough and protective as a suit of full plate.

4. keep it sensible. nobody wants to see your little elf girl run around in a bra and panties that provide as much toughness as a suit of power armor. i mean, i'm guilty of doing this when i was younger, in my heavy comic book phase, and wanted to actually play a small elf who kicked ass in a bra and panties. like every other teen going through puberty did at some point, the fact i identify by the female gender has no influence on this tendency. everybody has had a 25th level lesbian stripper ninja at some point. mine just happened to be a snow elf mercenary with a scimitar and kite shield instead of a drow ranger with a pair of scimitars.

5, when playing a wizard, it is fine to have multiple descriptions for the same spell to make your spellbook look padded. having alternate trappings within reason for your arcane background fits this. for example, a Pyrokineticist probably knows both incindiery and kinetic versions of the same attacks

About Me

i am Ilina Selene Young, a mute legal lolita otaku who lives with her fiancee and leeches off her mother in law because she is unable to hold down a job. i usually communicate through a whiteboard and i am extremely camera shy, sometimes, my Fiancee sets up the chats so i don't have to reveal myself. my Fiancee will be making videos in my stead